By now, we can all agree — digital has changed everything. So, it only makes sense that digital is responsible for blurring the lines between the marketing strategies of business-to-business (B2B) companies and those of business-to-consumer (B2C). Now that we can reach individual customers at scale, we have to start treating every customer as a person first, and the “customer persona” second.

Forrester analyst Steve Casey put it eloquently in his latest research by calling this trend the rise of the “B2B consumer.” For a career SaaS marketer, I’ll admit my first reaction was skepticism.

The conventional wisdom is that enterprise deals require buy-in from a committee of stakeholders, all motivated by their organizational responsibilities rather than personal interests. So, it should really be about putting our value proposition in business terms, right?

I realize now that’s an oversight. When I think about the marketing campaigns that have grabbed my attention and made me want to engage, the thing they all have in common is that they speak to me as a human being, not generically as the CMO of a martech company.

About The Author

Joe Hyland is the CMO of the leading webinar platform company, ON24, where he is responsible for the company’s global marketing, communication and brand strategy. He has over a decade of experience creating and marketing innovative products in the enterprise and SaaS software markets. Before joining ON24, Hyland was the CMO at Taulia, the SaaS market-leading financial supply chain company. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.